Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

That is what a headline COULD have read in the Charlotte Observer this morning if they actually took the time to even semi adequately cover the most successful professional Charlotte sports team. But instead, buried underneath articles about the lowly Carolina Panthers, a 3 day old blog about NASCAR which is only semi working, and a blog about fantasy baseball, of all things, you finally get a one line snippet about the Checkers rout of Syracuse last night.
I know that hockey is not an “important” sport in Charlotte, but if you look at the attendance record of the Checkers parent team up in Raleigh you’ll see that a franchise can be highly successful in the south and get some great attendance numbers. In my humble, albeit biased, opinion the Checkers have done an amazing job this year of advertising themselves with some fun promotional nights and putting together the most successful team in the region. Once you factor in the low price and family atmosphere of the games it’s near impossible to compete with the “bang for your buck” factor that the Checkers deliver.

I’m not suggesting that the Checkers coverage be placed higher than the 1-11 Panthers, or the disappointing Bobcats. These are the primary sports of the region. I get that. I truly do. Even the coverage of non professional sports like ACC Basketball, SEC football, and local high school sports is important. But when some of the more visible links and coverage in the sports section focus on articles that are days old why not try to shuffle the focus to something new and fresh?

It’s been reported time and time again that print media is dying. By looking at the observer I can understand why. Or maybe what I’m looking at is a result of the slow death. Either way, when checking out the sports section of the site it’s apparent that old media doesn’t get or understand new media at all. But I’ll focus on that in a future post. For the purpose of this post I’ll continue to rant about the inadequate Checkers coverage.

Once you manage to find the article on last nights game, which is about halfway down the page, you’ll see a generic title which tells you nothing about the drubbing that the Checkers put on last night. The article reads like nothing more than a stat sheet put in plain English with two quotes. Even worse, once you get into the article you’ll find that there is at least one glaring inaccuracy. The subtitle reads “Equaled most goals of AHL game this season, and each goal came from different player.” (I put the bold on the important part.) Yet below in the box score they clearly show Riley Nash getting 2 goals. Screen shot below.

Someone needs a better editor

I don’t expect a comprehensive, full game recap like the Checkers put together each game, but something accurate and not boilerplate generic would be nice. Something like the following:

Winner Winner chicken dinner

That’s what the fans at last nights checkers game were saying as they walked out of the arena celebrating the 10-3 route of division foe Syracuse. As the 6th puck of the night crossed the line behind the Syracuse goalie, with 6:47 gone in the second, the 3,517 checkers fans in attendance knew they would receive 6 free wings thanks to a promotion by the Checkers and Buffalo Wild Wings. But the celebration didn’t stop as the Checkers went on to score 4 more goals on their way to a dominating performance.

The checkers dominating performance looked great on ice but maybe even better on paper. Nine different players managed to put the puck behind one of the two lost goaltenders that switched in and out throughout the night. Riley Nash was the only greedy Checker to score more than 1. Herauf picked up a Gordie Howe hat trick. (A Goal, an assist, and a fight in the same game) The power play went an impressive 2-for-3, while the penalty killing unit shut down the Crunch on their two opportunities. After all was said and done, 15 of the 18 players dressed in red and white managed to either get a goal or an assist.

After a relatively quiet first period that ended in a 1-1 tie, thanks to a late goal by Crunch forward Palmieri, the Checkers exploded for 8 goals in the second period, including 6 goals in a 3:36 time span. The 8 goals in a period marked the most goals in a single period by any team since Providence Bruins scored 10 goals in the first period on Nov. 25, 1998. Strangely enough that was also against Syracuse.

Even though the Checkers took to the ice in the third period up 9-1 they didn’t stop their relentless attack firing 14 more shots at the shaky looking Syracuse goalie. They ended up poking one more past the net minder, but only after Syracuse put up two in behind Checker goaltender Murphy, who got his 7th win of the season.

The 10-3 drubbing of Syracuse makes Charlotte 8-2 in their last 10 games and puts them in third place, three points behind the Norfolk Admirals in the division.

Really? Was that so hard? I know that times are tough for print media but tell me you couldn’t find an intern from UNCC or one of the local colleges to put up a more interesting article than Jack Horan did. No offense Mr. Horan, my complaint is with the paper not with with you.

Spot on! Even in BSG itself I started to miss the action. There is a lot of drama going on lately, but sadly not much of the stuff I, as a Robotech fan, love. I know that drama is a vital part of the space opera genre, but I do miss my epic space battles. The flshabacks in the last episode were extremely painful to watch, I started to skip them. Â |Â

There are actually numerous details like that to take into consideration. That could be a great level to bring up. I supply the thoughts above as general inspiration however clearly there are questions like the one you bring up where a very powerful thing might be working in honest good faith. I don?t know if greatest practices have emerged around things like that, but I am certain that your job is clearly identified as a fair game. Each girls and boys really feel the influence of only a momentâ€™s pleasure, for the remainder of their lives.

So I’ve written, rewritten, self-promoted, blogged, tweeted, and facebooked all in an effort to become the Checkers Fan of the year. It all paid off. I’m now one of 16 finalists for the Charlotte Checkers fan of the year. I realized after meeting the other candidates and getting more information on what is in store…

For the past month or so I’ve been writing about trying to be named the Charlotte Checkers fan of the year. After seeing my name in lights the other night I got excited but couldn’t help but wonder what the next step was. Thankfully I didn’t have to wait long to find out a little…

The Charlotte Checkers are having a contest to name fan of the year. The prizes are awesome and I would love to win. All I have to do is write an essay of 200 words or less answering the question: “If you were talking to someone that had never been to a Checkers game before,…

The Charlotte Checkers are having a contest to name fan of the year. The prizes are awesome and I would love to win. All I have to do is write an essay of 200 words or less answering the question: “If you were talking to someone that had never been to a Checkers game before,…

The Charlotte Checkers are having a contest to name fan of the year. The prizes are awesome and I would love to win. All I have to do is write an essay of 200 words or less answering the question: “If you were talking to someone that had never been to a Checkers game before,…

The Charlotte Checkers are having a contest to name fan of the year. The prizes are awesome and I would love to win. All I have to do is write an essay of 200 words or less answering the question: “If you were talking to someone that had never been to a Checkers game before,…

The Charlotte Checkers are having a contest to name fan of the year. The prizes are awesome and I would love to win. All I have to do is write an essay of 200 words or less answering the question: “If you were talking to someone that had never been to a Checkers game before,…

The Charlotte Checkers are having a contest to name fan of the year. The prizes are awesome and I would love to win. All I have to do is write an essay of 200 words or less answering the question: “If you were talking to someone that had never been to a Checkers game before,…

The Charlotte Checkers are having a contest to name fan of the year. The prizes are awesome and I would love to win. All I have to do is write an essay of 200 words or less answering the question: “If you were talking to someone that had never been to a Checkers game before,…

Deep down inside I know that I didn’t make a difference, but I’d like to think I did. After all, who doesn’t want to think that with one silly little blog post critiquing the Charlotte Observer you can change the way something works. That being said please don’t burst my bubble. Let me think that…